Blotching maple

So I have a problem. I have never worked with maple before and I recently built some new kitchen cabinets out of maple and the stained them with watco walnut danish oil with horrible results after it dryed. What is my best bet to fix it now without sanding it off? I was thinking on getting some general finish gel stain and seeing if I can even it out. Any advice would be most appreciative.

ouch, try wiping it with some lacquer thinner, to see if any of it can be pulled out, lacquer thimnner is pretty strong, but evaporates fast, wear protection its also quite flammable, I am concerned that wiping it with mineral spirits would actually cause it go deeper, not sure it will help , but getting it lighter would help alot, then try the gel stain,

Hey Troth, I just did two shelves out of maple, and the customer wanted them to have a deep dark brown color. I had good luck applying water first then using a dye. It actually came out pretty well. I also learned, the darker blotches can be scrubbed with a damp rag and it will pick up some of the dye and make it a little lighter. BTW I am not a professional finisher so take my advice with a grain of salt.

I never understood the concept of trying to make Maple look like Cherry or Walnut or any other dark wood. Easiest thing to do is start with the type of wood that you want it to end up looking like : ) This is Mother Natures way of rebelling against us for trying to ruin her beautiful handiwork. You might as well paint it at this point.

I went over it with a thick coat of gel stain let it sit a little longer before I wiped it off and it turned out pretty good so far. Yes all the cabinets were stained yesterday afternoon. Hopefully it dries how it looks now. Thanks

To avoid blotching in the future try a pre-stain conditioner, like the ones produced by minwax and cabot. I prefer the cabot as it seems to work, better, but don’t let the conditioner dry completely you want it to block the stain from penetrating too far into the wood which is what causes the blotching.

-- The mark of a good carpenter is not how few mistakes he makes, but rather how well he fixes them.